Random Musings and General Insanity
by Lord Jareth
Summary: Because it's time for an update.
1. Talking Mellophone... *GASP!*

I, Band Nerd...  
  
A collection (if I get review, that is. If I don't, I won't write any more of these things) of my musings from being in the marching band.  
  
ATTENTION: I OWN ALL PATHETIC ATTEMPTS AT HUMOR IN THIS STORY. SPEECH. WHATEVER.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I DO NOT OWN THE MELLOPHONE. IT'S THE SCHOOL'S.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I WOULDN'T PAY FOR IT GIVEN THE CHANCE. IT'S NOT WORTH THE BRASS IT'S MADE OF.  
  
  
  
Can you tell that I hate it?  
  
~~~  
  
Click. Snap. Click. "Damned case." I pried the unlocked, yet sticking, clasp off of my case and yanked the thing open. The smell of valve oil wafted up to my nostrils. I gagged and stepped back from the case, but the horrible smell didn't dissipate. I glared down at the battered instrument inside. "I hate you, you know that?" It, of course, said nothing. "What is wrong with you? No amount of oil will make your valves move, I can't open them to fix them, the slides are fused shut and the mouthpiece won't clean, no matter what I do. What did I do to deserve you?"  
  
The mellophone, of course, said nothing. It never said anything, which I suppose was good, for my sake and its. If it could talk, and its personality were reflected by its appearance, it...  
  
"Stop rambling," said the mellophone.  
  
I blinked. "Did you just talk?"  
  
"Of course I did. How stupid are you?"  
  
"I'm not stupid."  
  
"That, my friend, is highly debatable." the nonexistent lacquer winked at me.  
  
"I never said you could be my friend."  
  
"You know what I mean."  
  
"I don't feel like fighting with you, mellophone."  
  
"Can't you call me something a bit more respectful?"  
  
"Like what? What's your name?"  
  
"That's none of your business."  
  
"Then what am I supposed to call you?"  
  
"Good point."  
  
"HEY!" Drum Major A yelled at the band suddenly. "We're out on the field! Go!"  
  
Drum Major B was already gone, so she couldn't yell at us.  
  
I blinked and picked up the mellophone, who'd stopped talking by now, grabbed my lyre, show music and flip-folder and sprinted out of the room, swearing under my breath. I looked down at the mellophone, and I swear that if it had eyes it would have winked.  
  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
Well, whatcha think? My first Marching Band story... and yes, this did happen to me once. I did hallucinate that my mellophone, who I hate with a passion, talked to me. I'll write more of these if you guys give me reviews, and like this. I'll try to stick with things like this that actually happened.  
  



	2. Sadistic Drum Major! I think I'm gonna d...

Since I did get a couple of reviews, I decided to add another installment to this ever-so-wonderful series of short musings. And insanity. Once again, the events prtrayed here are entirely true and more than a little insane.  
  
Today we find out what happens when Drum Major B decides to joke around with me. Just so you guys know, Drum Major A does all the yelling and Drum Major B does the whistle commands. Brownie points to anyone who can guess what grade Lord Jareth is in.  
  
~  
  
The whistle blew. The tubas started playing as we marked time. More lines popped out of the original line to form the blocks. Trombones, Saxes, mellophone, 3rd trumpet, French Horn (who didn't get a mellophone, but anything's better than my mellophone) and Baritone. Hey, that's my line!   
  
"You're too far back," the flute behind me hisses in my ear. I move forward in a very wonderfully smooth and intelligent manner.  
  
I stumbled out, and fell back into step quickly. March forward, march back, form diagonal lines, march out of the lines into a big fish-hook curve. Whistle blows. Stop marching, band. Don't step on me anymore, Baritone! My shoes are dirty from being stepped on. Of course I don't say it out loud and he doesn't hear me.  
  
And here I am, on the 50-yard-line, right in the middle of the field, looking ever so wonderfully band nerdy. I'm on the 50, and I've got to be the only one now who doesn't have a spot on the next page. Or if I do have it, nobody's telling me.   
  
I yell out to Drum Major B. "I don't have a spot, O Illustrious One! Please give me one!"  
  
She laughs. "What, you don't have a spot?"  
  
"No, I don't. Please give me one."  
  
She checks the show pages. "What's your number?"  
  
I tell her. She checks again.  
  
"You're not on here."  
  
I blink twice and stare. "What?"  
  
"You're not on here."  
  
"So what am I going to do? Stay on the 50 and dance or something?"  
  
"No, but you can spin in circles."  
  
"What?" I splutter. "Spin in circles on the 50?"  
  
She grins at me. If she were taller it would be scarier, but she's not. "Yeah. Think of it as your own personal solo or something."  
  
"Uh... okay..."  
  
But so much for that... because Drum Major A came over later and showed me my spot. I was on the drill chart! Drum Major B lied to me! I feel so betrayed... so afraid... I don't know if you could possibly understand such a feeling!  
  
Drum Major B never lies! She is good and true and pure and honest and generally perfect!  
  
I confronted her about it the next day. She lied to me. She confessed and everything. 


	3. The Best Thing in the World

Part three, part three... here I will tell you about my favorite thing in the world. Not really as funny as the others, but once again this is a real band experience.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
I heard the crowd's screams echoing in my ears. Why were they so loud? it was giving me a headache. I sprinted into the bleachers and yanked off my helmet. I sat down, and then leaped up again. The metal bleachers were cold, and my pants were thin. It shouldn't have been cold, it was only 9:30. But wait... third quarter... freedom... now?  
  
Yes, the show was over. The crowds had loved us despite the fact that Drum Major A had forgotten, of all things, to give us the horns-up cue. But, being made sensitive (I'm the only mellophone player in the damn band, and my line's full of idiots...) by certain events, I gave her no trouble. She wasn't the one who told me that I didn't have a spot in the show. She wasn't the one who told me to spin in circles on the 50.  
  
I sat on the icy metal bleachers, shako by my feet, next to my mellophone case, sipping an iced root beer. Best two bucks I ever spent, at least I thought so at the time. I can't be the only person who enjoys things more when they cost too much. I have to enjoy them, or I don't get my money's worth. And I really need a new mouthpiece.  
  
But I digress. I think. My work here is not to make sense.  
  
The point, I guess, is that there is nothing like sitting on cold bleachers, with everyone but the Guardie who moved in from Chicago amazed at how you take the "cold."  
  
God, I love band. 


	4. Revelation

Revelation: Marching Season is over. It hurts more than I would have expected.  
  
~~~~~~~~~  
  
There was a click as I shut the case for the last time. I heaved the damn thing back up to its spot on the shelf. I won't have to look at it at all until August. Damn mellophone. I hate it.   
  
"I hate you, you know?" I said bitterly to the closed case. "I always hated you. Just to show you, I'll march trumpet next year. And the new mellophones didn't even come in. I'll show you."  
  
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"  
  
"Shut up, mellophone." I turned and walked away.  
  
I came to the band room the next day carrying the scuffed case belonging to my beloved Biff. I took him from his case, gazing down at the lacquered tubing, still halfway in shock that the season was over all ready and we were going to go into concert season.  
  
I looked at the row of flutes in front of me to see the flutie who made the season hell for me sitting in the second-chair spot. She turned around and gave me that smile she has, the one that I know has some meaning, I just don't know what it is. I sighed and smiled back. I couldn't help it. For all she has against her, she does have charisma.  
  
I flipped Biff around to leave a pool of spit (I hear Band Director's voice in my head: IT'S CONDENSATION!) on the carpet. The flutie next to me winced. I glared at him. "Should I have dumped it on your shoe instead?"  
  
"That's disgusting."  
  
"Anything's better than a mellophone."  
  
"I meant you."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
Ah, they joy of concert season. But it means that the dread mellophone is gone. So I am happy. 


	5. The Mellophone Monologue

The Mellophone Monologue  
  
I dedicate a lot of my writing and energy my old marching season adversary, the dread Mellophone. I hated the thing with a passion, and with that hating passion I burnt out any chance of forming a bond with it. I didn't give it a name, or apply a gender when referring to it. That's all it was. It. Mellophone.  
  
Of course, it broke on me, though luckily only once... exactly one week before the final football game of the season. This was going to be the first game that our under-achieving, uncaring band would march the entire field show at. A lot of band addicts complain about their schools not caring about the band, but not one has made a complaint about the BAND not caring. But mine didn't. They didn't even try to learn it, pressured out easy-going director into not holding after-school practices, didn't try to learn the show... as a result, it took us four months to learn a five-page show. Pathetic.  
  
But I digress. Or maybe I don't. I have a habit of talking to myself entirely too much, even though nobody else wants to listen. Where was I? Ah, yes. The dread, albeit broken Mellophone.  
  
I didn't get it fixed. The Director didn't get it fixed. As a matter of fact, rather than get it fixed, the Director went to another school, to borrow their mellophone for me. You might say that it was love at first sight. It was by no means love that could measure up to my feelings for my precious Biff, but the shiny silver mellophone, with its smooth bell, springy valves, lightweight case and broken lyre holder captured my heart in a way that I never expected a mellophone to be able to do.  
  
It was a brief love affair, to say the least. I had little time to practice on this attractive young mellophone, and had little reason to care: after all, marching season is over, I should be practicing Biff. After the weekend was over, I brought the mellophone back to school, gave it to Director, and said goodbye to my new friend forever.  
  
The Director was somewhat sypathetic, but a clarinet-playing band director cannot truly understand the meaning such a mellophone had to me. There was something filling me, as I handed over the elegant, lightweight case, holding the shiny, smooth mellophone and the solid, clean mouthpiece (My own has so many years' worth of gunk in it that by the time I got it the stuff was impossible to clean out. I don't have my own mouthpiece, and none of the trumpet players were willing to loan me one...). I don't really know how to describe it. It could have been loss, but it wasn't, not really. I'm not sure what it was. I hope that I'll never feel it again, whatever it was.  
  
That was four months ago. Most of the band has probably forgotten our short, cheap show. Most of the band still doesn't care about the band. I personally would like to kick all of them out, but then we wouldn't have any trumpets or very many members of our other sections. We wouldn't have a band. That is the only reason we put up with people who don't care, okay?  
  
The dread Mellophone has been fixed, and is stagnating in a cubby. Its valves still stick, its slides still won't move and the mouthpiece is still full of gunk. I haven't touched it since the time it broke. I haven't wanted to, with its folded bell (Don't ask. I don't know how it happened, it was like that when I got it.) and cloud of stench.  
  
The Director ordered two new mellophones, and two new sousaphones several months ago. Our sousaphones are almost in as bad a shape as our mellophone. None of the new instruments have arrived yet. I'm worried.  
  
I hope that the new ones arrive by marching season next year. I hope we have enough people to have a band that really cares. I hope we can get a decent show, with decent music (DIE GREASE DIE!!) and instruments that aren't breaking as we play them.  
  
I hope that some day I'll be able to see my old silver friend again. It was a short love affair, but it left a serious mark on me.  
  
I am such a band nerd. 


	6. The Show Rant

The Show Rant  
~  
I'd like to thank all of you who left reviews... you fueled my pathetic ego. I'm so happy. Well, not really. But you did fuel my ego a little, so I'm going to keep writing, and hope that somebody gleans a small amount of wisdom from my inscriptions here.  
  
I'd also like to apologize to any clarinet players I have offended. I'm an insensitive brass player, what can you expect from me?  
  
~  
For those of you who read the last chapter and were wondering if I was exaggerating when I described my show, I wasn't. Here are the pages, for you, and why I hate them.  
  
Page 1: Line up in two lines, horns in one, battery and guard in the other, and more down the 50 until we're in the middle of the field. Takes about four minutes for us just to get in the lines, let alone get them straight. It's impossible for us to get them straight before going on to the field, and we always end up stuck in the mud.  
  
Page 2: Smaller lines, those given letters for names (I'm in the H line, just for the record), "pop" out of the big lines to form a block, and the battery and guard do something. I'm usually zoning out or fighting with the flute behind me at practices, so I don't pay attention to them. We have to dress front and my line-leader can't march to save his life.  
  
Page 3: The block moves across the field. We ALWAYS compact on this, and my line-leader can't march. He can't play either, but that's another story...  
  
Page 4: The band forms an arch. Then we stop, and play a song without moving. This is just stupid, but at least it doesn't take much damage from bad marchers. The only visual effect comes from the dance team's coming out on to the field to do a little dance number.  
  
Page 5: The arch moves backwards to form a different arch, we stop and play another song. I'm ashamed to call this group a marching band. Really. We don't march. That's the guard's job, and most of them can't march either.  
  
Then we march off the field playing our finale which kills our mediocre trumpet section's lips.  
  
This is our WHOLE SHOW. I haven't left anything out, haven't cut anything down. I have everything memorized, but that's only because it takes up so little memory. You guys think you have a problem with schools who don't care that the band wins competitions? What about the band that doesn't care enough to compete? What does that do to those of us who do? What is left?  
  
There is my show rant, and band rant. I doubt anybody enjoyed reading what took my band three months to learn. 


	7. The guard. Appreciate them. Some deserve...

Something that every marcher should know. Really.  
  
I don't care if I get flamed for this. If you think I'm an idiot for appreciating the guard, flame away. I'll use them to have a band barbecue.  
  
~~~~~~~  
  
If you don't realize it, the guard has a tough job. If you do, then there's no point in you reading this, because basically I'll be berating marchers for not appreciating the guard. You can read this, if you like, but it contains to brilliant revelations. Oh, wait, that's this whole pice of work.  
  
So here I am, saying that the colorguard is a good thing, full of hardworking people.Yes, a lot of these people are slutty. A lot of them are rude, stuck up, and breathe too much hairspray. But this should not mean to you that all guard members are like that. Some of them are smart, honest, hardworking people. Really, they do exist.  
  
The stuff they do is hard. I've tried some of it. I can't manage a rifle or a sabre to save my life. One of my friends says that rifle is easier than it looks. I say it's hard. I can't single-time with a flag. I double-time automatically, and I do it strangely too. Nobody can figure out what I'm doing, and to be honest, neither can I.  
  
Sabres hurt when you get with with them. So do rifles. Flags aren't quite so painful, because they're lightweight. Well, they do hurt if utilized correctly, but they are less painful than rifles and sabres no matter what.  
  
The guard is dangerous. You have to respect them. A good guard is a fantastic addition to a marching band. If your guard sucks as bad as ours does, with four people in it who care, and only one really talented person... well, you're dead on the visual, now aren't you? You are nothing without your eye candy.  
  
I could never be in guard, which is why I respect those who are. Sometimes I'm almost jealous that I can't do it. They are special, and despite the fact that a number of them inhale far too much hairspray, learn to deal with them. They are important. 


	8. The PARADE rant

PARADE!!!!!!!!!  
  
We have been signed up by our Illustrious Director of a PARADE. This is not a bad thing for most bands but it is for us, for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that we aren't a marching band. We're a wind ensemble turned pep band in cheap marching uniforms that shuffles approximately 8-to-5 along a football field. The step sizes vary from person to person, some go 6-to-5 and some go 10-to-5. Somehow we managed to pull off our pathetic 5-page show at the final football game of the season, but it took us the whole season to get it, at every game until November we screwed something up.   
  
Another issue is that none of us (save the two who have joined the local drum corps) have marched since the stupid Thanksgiving football game. We aren't a marching band, like I said. Most of us can't march, and those who do (myself included in this, honestly) don't care. It's really sad. No after-school practices. Nothing. Nothing at all. So sad.  
  
So we will be doomed to march this stupid parade. I'll be sure to give you my account of it after it's all over. 


	9. Sweet freedom!

Ah, sweet freedom! I, the parade hater, have been released from the torture of standing and sweating brought up by the thoughtless yet all-powerful Band Director!  
  
I suppose I should elaborate. Being the brilliant, wonderful, talented (coughs are heard from teh audience) musician that I am, my teacher thought it only right for me to audition for the local Youth Symphony. Nothing too serious, right? Of course not. Getting into the senior division would be no trouble at all for me (some members of the audience leave to get water for their chronic coughs) to make the senior division of the symphony.  
  
To describe the day in its entirety.........  
  
I put Biff (my horn, if you didn't know) back in his case and walked out of my room to get ice for my lips. My mom handed me a letter. I opened it and read it over, several times, not quite able to believe what I was reading. My audition for the youth symphony had been scheduled... no the day of the parade. I tamped down my glee and looked at the time. Ten AM. Wonderful. There was no way in the world that we'd be done with the parade by then, so I was free. Free from what I hated so much.  
  
It's not that there's anything wrong with parades. I just hate them. I'm not really a marching band person, I do concert and jazz band, and that's what I love. The evil mellophone, and my brief affair with the silver one, sort of sullied my opinion of marching band and marching over all.  
  
But I digress. The next day, I approached the director. "Oh Mighty Director? Could I have a word with you?"  
  
"Of course. What do you need?" (I'm the suck-up of the band, not to mention first chair horn.)  
  
"I have a scheduling conflict... I really hate to tell you this, but I'm not going to be able to make the parade... you see, my Youth Symphony audition is on the same day and I won't be able to manage it." Aren't I a good liar? I'm not even making this up. That's not to endorse lying to your director, I just happen to be good at it.  
  
"Well... I think we'll be able to manage. That shouldn't be a problem."  
  
Was that painless or what? I almost felt the need to brace myself for something horrible, but decided against it.  
  
Nothing horrible has happened yet, but will a marching curse be placed upon me? Find out next... in the next chapter of RANDOM MUSINGS AND GENERAL INSANITY. 


	10. Bittersweet Visions

Sorrow and Joy and...  
  
The end of the year is upon us, and I don't know what to feel. Of course I'm glad to see the end of the year, a break from this thing called "school" that distracts me from my devotion to band... of course, I will also have to spend three months away from my home away from home, my dear Band Room, my band friends (as none of us have free time over the summers) and even the director. Next year, band camp will be full of new freshmen who don't know a thing about marching and the duty will fall to us to teach them.  
  
The end of the year is a bittersweet time, a time of saying goodbye and promising to remember things that you shouldn't even dare to suggest forgetting. The graduating seniors are under obligation to promise to come back. Even those who know very well that as soon as they're gone, they will never be seen or heard from again.   
  
The sentimental slobs will cry at graduation as they watch the seniors cross the stage and walk away, never again to be a part of us. Hell, even those of us who aren't all sentimental will cry. I'm pretty sure I will, but such things are pretty unpredictable.  
  
And as for the next year... I'll have to meet up again with my old friend the mellophone. The new ones the school ordered that were supposed to be here last November for homecoming still haven't arrived. Should I look forward to it?  
  
Of course. 


	11. You know you've been in band too long wh...

Just a little anecdote from the band room... yes this is a true story...  
  
The class period was ending, though to ask anybody in the room, you'd hear that we were just tired of playing for the day and thought we'd best put our instruments away if we were to do something outside of band.  
  
I put Lionel (my bone, if you didn't know) back into his case (the only blue case in the band, cuz my sweet little bone's special) and lumbered back to my cubby through the mass of people doing stuff. As I walked past the trombones, though (this was concert band period, don't ask why I had Lionel out), I heard a greeting.  
  
"Hey, Lionel!" The third chair bone, who happened to be the same guy who taught me to march at band camp the past summer, grinned and waved. Then he paused. "Oh, hi Jareth. I didn't see you there."  
  
You know you're been in band too long when people talk to your instrument before they talk to you. 


	12. Someone New...

Somebody New....  
  
(Let me explain something. Naturally, my new director's last name is not X, but it's not common either. So, I'll be replacing it... if you know her personally, go ahead and flame me fo not portraying her accurately. I really don't care.)  
  
The phone rang. I picked it up. "Hello?"  
  
"Hi!" said a cheery voice. "I'm Angela X, your new band director!"  
  
"WHAT? I only just e-mailed the old one saying that I was going to miss band camp!"  
  
"You're going to miss band camp?"  
  
"Yeah... I have this symphony camp I have to go to... if I don't they'll probably kick me out and that wouldn't be very nice... I hope you don't mind."  
  
"Well... I guess that will be manageable."  
  
Actually, this is not a transcript of our conversation. Far from it. I don't even really ember what the conversation was like. I was pretty shocked that our old director was gone. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing, though... to her, pushing us was a foreign term, and it was her fault that we had such a pathetic, puny field show last year. So maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that she was gone. But maybe it was. I'm still not completely sure, but so far under Ms. X, the band is doing a lot better. That is to say, we get yelled at and are expected to know how to march.  
  
I still live in the band room with my old band geek/nerd/dork/freak/idiot/psycho friends. So that hasn't changed, and I wouldn't want it to change for anything in the world. I'm back with my old nemesis, the dread Mellophone. That's bad, but anything's better than taking Biff out on the field.   
  
Not only that, we'll have proper practices... I don't know how well the band will take this. So far they aren't happy. I hesitate to wonder what this will do to our number. But now, I don't care. 


	13. WHAT?

WHAT???????????  
  
"So, how many pages are in our field show this year?" I was standing outside Ms. X's office during lunch break.   
  
"Thirty-six. What do you think?"  
  
"That sounds a lot better than last year."  
  
(FLASHBACK: Five [CENSORED] pages of drill. Five. Well... guess what? Nobody told Ms. X.)  
  
"Why, how many did you have last year?"  
  
"...five."  
  
"WHAT??"  
  
"You heard me correctly, judging by your response."  
  
"FIVE??"  
  
"That's right."  
  
At this point, as if on cue, our colorguard captain walked in.  
  
"Ms. X, did you want to talk to me?"  
  
"DID YOU GUYS REALLY HAVE FIVE PAGES OF DRILL LAST YEAR?"  
  
"Well, actually, we had nine... but the first three were so pathetic they might as well have been one page."  
  
I sighed and attempted to look miserable. "That sounds about right. And then some genius had the brilliant idea to cut the last page, giving us five."  
  
Ms. X looked genuinely miserable. "Why didn't you tell me this at the beginning?"  
  
Guardie shrugged. "I didn't want to scare you off. We need a dedicated director."  
  
I ditched the miserable look and grinned. "That sounds about right." 


	14. Because it's Time

Because it's about time...  
  
Okay, so it's been a while since I had anything up here. I've been busy... with... band. Yeah, band. It's been so different from last year I can't describe it... but at the same time, it's exactly the same. We currently know our opener. And half of our ballad, at least some of us do. Most have forgotten it. The opener's eleven pages long and the ballad is eight. We'll be receiving the drill for our closer this Saturday at rehearsal...  
  
But a lot of things really haven't changed. The trumpets still can't march, and don't care about the band. But the biggest troublemaker of all has finally gotten in trouble... he deserved it, and while there is nothing that bothers me more than some band geek suffering unduly, I obtained some sort of sick pleasure from hearing Ms. X telling him he had detention.  
  
Our drum majors this year, C and D, are decidedly better than A and B were, though I loved them dearly. C is a trombonist and a goofball, but he still manages to know his stuff and do really well. He's a very cool dude and he's the best section leader I could ask for in jazz band.   
  
Drum Major D is even more insane. He plays alto sax and dances like a very white guy... but we love him too, because he's cool. Both drum majors are in a band they formed called Pelvic Thrust, but they have yet to be able to tell me what kind of music they play... more will come on this as I obtain more information. 


End file.
